Eating Out
by dreamsinreality
Summary: Birthdays were supposed to be happy times, weren't they?


Summary: Birthdays were supposed to be happy times weren't they?  
  
Rating: G  
  
Spoilers: nothing really specific  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own them, but I know they're in Hank's capable hands.  
  
AN: My first fic, ever. It's short, I know. And this was written before Fall Out, so I didn't know they lived in the city and not the suburbs before.  
  
Thanks: To M for all her help and compliments, and a huge thanks to the whole Maple St. gang, you guys know who you are, for great insight and just being all around great and supportive 'bout everything. You guys rock!  
  
Jack turned around once again in the small apartment he was now calling home. It was his day off and for once he had nowhere to be, no one waiting for him anywhere. It was also, quite coincidentally, his birthday. Turning around, he realized he was pretty sure there was going to be no one coming straight home after work eager to take him out for his birthday dinner, a little something Marie had thought up for the girls, but that soon spread to include both the parents as well.  
  
He looked out the small window that broadcasted a 24-hour view of a concrete jungle. He had taken lately to comparing it to the view from the bedroom window in Connecticut, but a back lawn with flowers just wasn't comparable to high-rises and office buildings. It was raining again, or to be more precise, it was thundering. It was thundering on his birthday.  
  
The rain had slowed some by the time Jack finished breakfast. Nothing special, even though it was his birthday. Bacon and eggs were enough for him on this rainy day. He got onto the elevator and was so deep in thought that he barely noticed the elevator stopping at the ground floor. It was only when he felt it start to go back up that he realized what had happened. He got off on the second floor and walked down the last flight of stairs and out of the building into the drizzling rain that was coming down from the heavens on his birthday.  
  
Forty-six! The number seemed big, almost too big to his ears. He wondered what Marie would say, then almost immediately regretted the thought. He didn't want to think of Marie and Samantha and his daughters and these past few months. No, it wasn't that, he still cared about them, all four of them, but he didn't feel like being down and depressed on his birthday from having these thoughts churning through his mind.   
  
Birthdays were supposed to be happy times weren't they? So why did Jack feel like he was at the bottom of pit. An endless pit of lies and deception that wasn't made any better by a divorce.   
  
It wasn't like Samantha had said, he couldn't just "move on." He needed confirmation that Marie still accepted him as a part of her life and his daughter's lives. He needed confirmation that his daughters still viewed him as part of their lives, that they would let him know what was going on with them. That they wouldn't grow up and be even farther away then they already were. He needed confirmation that Samantha didn't think he was a failure for stopping to try to make it all right and that it wasn't all his, or her, fault.  
  
The rain stopped just as he turned the corner into his apartment building. He sighed knowing that no one would be inside to joke at his misfortune. No Marie, no Hanna, no Kate. After hanging up his wet jacket in the front closet, he kicked off his shoes and flopped out on the couch, picked up a book off the floor, and began to read.   
  
He must have dozed off at some point because when he woke to the sound of someone knocking at the door, the hands on the clock had shifted a few more hours towards dinnertime. The knock at the door got consistently louder, till he decided that the only way to get the knocking to stop was to actually get up and open the door to whoever was there.  
  
"I'm coming," he yelled in the general direction of the door, and the knocking stopped.  
  
He unlocked the door with a flick of the wrist and slowly opened it. He wasn't quite sure who to expect to be there at the door, but when he opened it, he was more relieved than happy. Though maybe it should have been the other way around, he didn't know.  
  
"Sam," he whispered her name, realizing she was no longer 'off-limits'. Realizing Marie wouldn't care what he did with this woman. It didn't occur to him to wonder how Sam had found his apartment, how she knew where he lived, all he cared about was that she was standing in the doorway to his apartment looking just as good as she did the first time he saw her, two and a half years ago when she was just starting out in the unit.  
  
She smiled at him, looping her arm around his waist and guiding him towards the elevator.  
  
"Have you eaten?" she asked.  
  
Jack answered by simply shaking his head, not knowing what was to come, yet he had a vague idea.  
  
"Good." She smiled. "I have reservations. Fancy place, not too fancy though. You'll like it." Her voice trailed off and they lapsed into silence. Words didn't matter to her at that moment. 


End file.
